Money Money Money

Captain's Blog Stardate 89972.86

When Star Trek Online was first released we had about 15 different kinds of currency in the game. It was hard to keep track of and a bit annoying. Before the game went free-to-play, Cryptic combined most of this into what we know as Dilithium. The only currency that remained is Energy Credits and Gold-Pressed Latinum. With the recent introduction of Lobi Crystals I'm concerned that Cryptic might be heading down the same path of a large variety of currencies. Now I know what you may be thinking, Lobi Crystals are actually items not a currency. In a sense you are correct, but their only purpose is to be traded for an item (like Energy Credits or Dilithium).

What is worse about Lobi Crystals is that they actually take up a spot in inventory. So not only have they added a new currency, but they are wasting our space. I assume their reason for adding this is so that people couldn't easily buy the items from the Lobi store, but still they could have just Dilithium or Gold-Pressed Latinum and set the prices very high. I just hope Cyrptic doesn't continue to add things like this in the future. Use the currencies that we already have, it is just easier on all of us.

Written by Attilio on May 14, 2012 at 09:39 am

Comments

ChrisHerr(Member) said...May 14, 2012 at 10:07 am

I agree that adding lots of currencies is troublesome. I would certainly add that EDCs are another type or currency for STF gear, and like Lobi, they take up inventory space.

I hope they link Gold Pressed Latinum with Lobi at some point, even if it's a crazy large number of GPL for a Lobi Crystal. It would make GPL more worth while.

(And there would be more interest in putting a dabo table in fleet starbases!)

When I started playing STO during the anniversary weekend, I was a bit confused by the whole currency system. Ignoring the fact that there was no currency in the Star Trek Universe, There was energy credits, dilithium, GPL, and EDCs. Now they add Lobi Crystals to the mix. That said, I was in favor of the Lobi Crystals, and I still am. Some people have terribly bad luck with random drawings. These are the people who grind dozens of STFs just to buy their Mk Xi gear with EDCs. The Cardassian lockboxes were very much all or nothing, however the Ferengi lockboxes have a glimmer of hope in them. Even if you don't win the ship, you still have a chance of getting something cool. I still maintain that the lockboxes are a waste of my money. I understand that money does grow on trees for some players. For those that have more money than luck, Lobi Crystals work. I still won't be participating in the Lobi Crystal trade in the foreseeable future, but I agree with the idea. Should Cryptic have made the Lobi Crystal items available in the Lockboxes instead of through a store? Probably. Then again we're back to the whole "all or nothing" that was the Cardassian Lockboxes.

The thing to remember about STO is that Cryptic's attitude towards it is not so much an entertaining simulation of Star Trek, but rather as an MMO amusement park (as evidenced by the c-store, and comparisons between the gamey official episodes and some of the more accomplished and Trek-like Foundry adventures). Lobi is just another form of ticket to buy gifts from their park vendors. It's one of the unfortunate realities with "free-to-play" schemes. I only care about the crystals as far as the first 20 free ones from the episode replays so I can get a whip and the scavenger accolades, but that's the extent of it.

It was established in DS9 that a lot of the non-Federation warp capable worlds had accepted latinum as the commodity of choice for trade thanks to the incredible reach of the Ferengi free market system (a system I admire a lot more than the Federation's unrealistic pseudo-socialist "moneyless" system).

Someone please bonk DStahl on the head and have him make GPL far more worthwhile for buying things than stupid, unattractive, and overpriced trophies and token limited-used holoemitters. You don't need years of game design experience to figure out the potential being wasted here.

I don't typically need a manual to decipher what the hell I'm buying things with, but STO breaks the mold apparently.

I know people have pointed out the ironies of a Star Trek game being riddled with currencies and money-chasing a billion times before, but it bears repeating. The sheer *amount* of currencies and pseudo-currencies (Lobi, EC, Ship Reqs, Dil, EDC, Reman Datalogs, Particle Samples, Doff Reqs, Defera Chips...) isn't the most glaring problem, either: it's that these currencies are more often than not completely baffling and given zero explanation as to their purpose. What's the difference between a "Gold-pressed Latinum Package" and regular ol' ingots of GPL?

Also concurring with Sheva that there are some real gems in the Foundry missions.